Are you serious? What in the world does NASA have to do with construction electrical work??? You can's just throw the name NASA around and expect everyone to be impressed.
I bet he COULD teach me a few things about NASA related stuff, I also bet I could teach HIM a few things about being a self-employed construction and service electrical contractor.

BTW, no, I am not union. NEVER will be. Most union guys take work away from me by doing side work during the long periods they are laid off.

He was an electrician at NASA. He worked on the buildings and equipment out there, not some guy in a lab suite. And I'm sure the power requirements of the buildings and facilities can get quite complicated.

And since your self employed, why would you berate another self employed electrician? And if someone is taking work from you, maybe you should be more competitive with your prices. To assume because they will do the job for less than you means that the work is sub par is just your attempt to marginalize competition. Obviously, by your comments, freelance independent electricians are taking away some of your business. But, it's good to hear your not a union boy.

If it passes inspection and does what it's suppose to do, the average owner could care less how "beautiful" it looks. And if people are bragging about how good he is, then berating him because he's independent is unfounded. I mean, how dare someone create competition.

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You just don't get it, do you. I myself am an "independent" electrician. It's just I am a legitimate, licensed, insured contractor. I have a pretty good amount of overhead. The guys you are describing are NOT "independent contractors". They are doing side work with almost no overhead. It's not that my prices are too high, it's that theirs are too low.

Again, a facility electrician at NASA has about 10% in common with residential construction electric. I know 30 year career union guys who work only in big cities and large jobs. Even they are sometimes clueless as to the codes and procedures of "regular" residential work.
Your guy may very well know what he is doing, but it DID NOT come from working at NASA.

Even at 300 for 6 hours your making good money. If electricians make more than 50 an hour then I do need to become an electrician. That's some really good money. I'll be watching whoever is doing it, so I can learn something.

Do you really believe that? $50 an hour. Gee, maybe if you buy all the tools I need to do the work. Obviously you have never run a business.

Some guy doing side work that doesn't pay workman's comp, SS taxes, medicare taxes, overhead, maybe even uses his bosses tools and scams under his license.

Sure, a guy doing side work can undercut any legit contractor.

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Speedy, the schmoe that we're trying to get out here for a quote worked for NASA for 20 years.

Was he an electrician? NASA employees people anywhere from lawn maintenance people to rocket scientists. Claiming you work for NASA doesn't mean anything.

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He can probably teach you some things

. and I (and petey and marc and a few others here) could likely teach him some things.

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Some independent contractors realize they can make more money on there [sic] own, instead of working for a company that takes all their money.

an independent contractor IS a company. Now the IC has to worry about paying all of that overhead that his last boss took all the money from everybody for. Do you think there is some magical action where the IC doesn't have to pay all those expenses the last contractor he worked for had to pay?

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Let me guess, your part of a union?

petey isn't but I am. That has nothing to do with working legal. That is simply a red herring argument where you try to claim union guys get overpaid. Well, the problem with that is; I know non-union guys that make as much or more than I do. On top of that, a typical non-union contractor has a higher profit margin than the union contractors.

So, to get back on subject; are you asking about just changing out the panel or digging the 20-30 feet of trench and laying proper sized conduit, pulling wire, installing the equipment, which is going to include a new mounting system.

The guy is a licensed electrician. He has experience in residential and commercial, that's how I found the guy in the first place. Many of the people who hired him brag about how good of a job he does. In Florida, you can't pull a permit for a job unless you are licensed for the work or your the home owner and this job requires a master electrician to pull the permit. Our POCO has a huge lock on the meter, so it can't be pulled without them. Once pulled they will not put the meter back in until it passes inspection. So, no mater what route I go, it will be done right or the power will not get turned on. Just because someone is willing to do the job for much cheaper than you, doesn't mean that they are violating code to do it. And I would never hire an unlicensed electrician. This guy has been hired to fix wiring that the builders have done wrong by people I know. I have full confidence in his abilities. The question is, will he do it for the price I'm aiming for.

I might be willing to go up to 400 for labor if necessary. But that is definitely my limit. My budget is strapped as it is. These mobile homes are money pits. This one was given to us. My parents had a hard time trying to get a buyer. It's a 1980 but has been nearly completely drywalled and has nice custom cherry cabinets in the kitchen. The floors on the other had are made of particle board and I have to replace all of it with plywood because it's starting to deteriorate. My wife and I figured if it's free we'll take it. It'll allow us to build up money for a house over the next 3-5 years. But of course we have to put some money in to maintain it. This load center was not one we were expecting to need replacing.

There is no room to mount the box under the meter. And putting in a new stand and moving the meter just so I can put the box underneath is not worth the money. Putting the box on the backside of the meter is the only other option to get the 2 foot hight requirement. If this is done, the wire from the house will make it into the box through conduit, but might come up a few inches short of reaching the breakers. The ground and neutral wires will be fine because the bus for them can be installed near the bottom of the box. Can I use wire nuts for the two hot wires to extend them or would I need to run new wire? I'm pretty sure they are long enough, but if they aren't, I want to know my options.

Both of the hot wires are 2 awg and 600 V. The main breaker in the sub panel (inside the house) is a 100 amp double pole 240V breaker.

Currently the two hot wires running from the main load center to the sub panel are wired at the top of the bus bar inside the main box. And the two hot wires coming from the POCO go to a 100 amp breaker inside the main box, which powers the bus.

I'm wanting to use a 200 amp load center linked to above. I know that the two main from the POCO go into the 200 amp main breaker. Do I use a 100 amp 240V breaker in the load center to link the two hot leading to the sub panel 100 main breaker or do I wire the two hot wires into the bus bar? Having a 100 amp at both ends of the two main hot wires seems redundant. I'll post some pictures of the inside of the main load center and sub panel tomorrow. I know I need a 100 amp breaker at the main load center end to protect the wire.

I'm SLIGHTLY out of my normal area of activity here so take this with a grain of salt.

You need a 100A breaker on the post end unless you've got 200A conductors. "tap rule" is nagging at me though, and I think if the run is short enough you only need the one on the load end.

I ALWAYS see a 100A breaker on both ends around here, so I've never questioned it, and my hunch is that it's actually required.

Yes, you are correct - the 100A breaker inside the trailer will protect the conductors from overload (current in a conductor is the same along the entire length, so limiting to 100A on either end limits to 100A through the whole thing), but if the cable itself were to develop a short somewhere, the concern is whether or not the resistance of the conductors would allow a high enough current to flow to trip a 200A breaker in an acceptable amount of time. That's the reason the 'tap rules' have distance limitations (longer conductor = higher resistance)...

I'm not sure that all applies here, of course, just giving you food for thought, since, as I said, I'm "stuck in a rut" and do it the same way every time, and never really have to think about what might be allowed outside of that.

I think I'll just keep the 100 amp main breaker in the sub panel and add another one in the new main load center. When you say conductor, I'm assuming that your referring to the wire and not the bus. The bus is, however, going to be copper. The current one is aluminum, that's what's ruining the current breakers. How do I know if it's copper? Is it by the color of the wire or is there some making on the wire that would indicate it was copper? Also, I take it I can extend the wire in the main box if it comes up short? I wasn't sure if post 25 was in reference to extending the wire. And when you say full 4 conductor, I'm assuming your refering to having two hot, one neutral and one ground. In which case, yes it does.

This is what is says on the wire. ALCAN S 2 AWG COMPACT AL STABILOY 600V THW (UL) 1983

ALCAN... *AL*CAN is also a company that makes, primarily at least, aluminum wire.

Service conductors are often aluminum. Aluminum wire is bad when it's not installed properly. Same with that aluminum bus of yours. CORRECT torquing of all terminal screws (read the labels and use a torque wrench!) and a good application of noalox (or similar anti-oxidation paste/grease) is necessary, and probably could have solved your original problem without all of this

How do you tell if (whatever) is aluminum or copper? Well, by looking at it, and by reading labels.

Yes, copper wire is usually copper-colored, although I've encountered a few pieces that were plated with something that made it look silvery... even then it wasn't the same gray as aluminum, however.

And there's no catch (well, sorta...). The "new code" does not require copper. They are sized differently. You need larger aluminum conductors than you would copper for the same current.

#2 aluminum is fine for 100A. If you end up doing this yourself, the biggest challenge you're going to see is the wires not being long enough.